Essay 4 - Meaning as Inference

Often, perhaps even most of the time, the meaning as content can be understood in many ways. When this happens, we need a reference point external to the content to help us determine what the content means.

We saw this in the previous essay where somebody said that they like your tie but said it in a snide voice. The snide voice is a reference point which suggests that you should not take the content (that they like your tie) at face value.

Here is another kind of reference point. The word “decision” literally means “to cut off”. You can probably see the similarity to words such as incision, which means to cut into, and excision, which means to cut something out. But in common usage a decision is a conclusion not an amputation. So, which is it, a conclusion or something cut off? Well, if the reference point is the etymology based on the root words it is “to cut off”. If the reference point is the conversational usage, then it is a conclusion. But even the conventional sense has multiple possibilities. In the more straightforward case, a decision means that you selected among alternatives (i.e., cut off the other ones). But we also have a meta-interpretation as in “We came to a decision. We decided not to decide.” The reference point here is the vagaries of social interactions.

Sometimes greater insight can be achieved regarding the meaning as content of a message by looking at it from multiple reference points. For example, when a political decision is made, exactly what do we mean? Not too long ago we would hear pundits on the news talking about the politics versus the optics of a decision. In this case, the optics of a decision would be how it looks as opposed to the political motivations behind it.

The same sort of interpreting content via a reference happens when we ask what a book or movie means. The book or movie will have some basic message which we would probably call its theme or moral. But in order to gain a greater understanding we would turn to an external reference such as a school of thought in literary or cinematic criticism. For example, Huckleberry Finn means something very different to different people who interpreted it through different lenses. One can see it as a coming-of-age novel, as a political statement, as an indictment of racism, as a moral dilemma, or any number of other frameworks.

The content, perhaps, is the more basic meaning while the reference provides a richer, meaning inferred using a point of reference. Further, the content can be interpreted through several references, and one is likely to prefer one interpretation over another, perhaps strongly. Life is the same way. There is meaning in content, but the meaning derived through interpretation using a point of reference is, generally, much greater. 

This essay is almost 500 words and the audio is almost 4 minutes.